Bobby Bowden went to great lengths to keep quiet news that he had prostate cancer in 2007.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- First thing's first. It's great to hear Bobby Bowden is cancer-free after revealing this week he had prostate cancer in 2007 that he kept secret for four years.

Bowden, now a paid spokesman for a national prostate cancer education initiative, can become a valuable voice for men to get examined. Every person deserves medical privacy, and Bowden had every right to stay quiet as Florida State's coach.

What's so incredibly sad is the reason Bowden says he didn't tell anyone other than his family. He worried rival coaches would tell five-star recruits he was about to die.

Talk about an indictment on the cutthroat business of big-time college football.

Jon Solomon is a columnist for The Birmingham News. Join him for live web chats on college sports on Wednesdays at 2 p.m.

Instead of letting players, friends and bosses help him through his brief illness, Bowden was more concerned Urban Meyer, Randy Shannon and Frank Beamer would get a recruiting edge with 17-year-olds. Sadly, when viewed through the lens of recruiting, Bowden's rationale as a then-77-year-old coach actually makes sense.

"Maybe it ain't right, but that's the way the game is played," Bowden said on ESPN's "Outside the Lines." "Every coach is looking for an in-roads, something where I could get this good player, someway to get him to come to my school and not go to his school."

Bowden took this secrecy to extremes. Joe Camps, the Tallahassee doctor who treated Bowden and once played for him, described to USA Today the great lengths he went to in order to keep the surgery quiet.

Bowden was given a fictitious name at the hospital. He arrived at midnight and headed straight to the operating room. He went to a secure part of the hospital for recovery and was discharged by 5 a.m.

Thankfully, Bowden's cancer was caught early. Yet even today, Bowden says he would have stayed quiet all over again if he was still coaching.

"I hate to say it, but yeah, I would keep the secret again," Bowden said on ESPN. "Now, if I was not coaching, no, I wouldn't keep it a secret."

Tommy Bowden, Bobby's son and former Clemson coach, said there's no doubt cancer would have been used against his father in recruiting given his age.

"It is sad, but if you look at the state of college football, it doesn't surprise you," Tommy said. "Right now, it's a cold-blooded profession. A lot of schools are playing on the edges and increasing the speed limit."

Even while Bobby kept his cancer quiet, Florida State's program was headed downhill. He stayed too long and had to finally be forced out, although he says his job status is not why he kept his cancer quiet.

Truth is, other elite coaches have shared a cancer diagnosis publicly and still managed to recruit.

Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun went public with multiple bouts of cancer while missing games. He won two national championships after his initial diagnosis.

Jim Boeheim missed three Syracuse basketball games in 2001 after surgery for prostate cancer. He still signed Carmelo Anthony and won the national title the following season.

Basketball coaches Tubby Smith of Minnesota and Steve Lavin of St. John's also went public after diagnoses of prostate cancer. They continue to recruit.

"Probably because those basketball guys are a nicer group of guys," Tommy Bowden said. "When somebody commits, they don't keep going after them. They have a gentleman's agreement. There are no gentlemen in college football. Football has sharks. It's cold-blooded. As soon as a guy commits, the war is on."

It's hard to believe basketball is quite that polite. It's easy to believe football can be that cutthroat. Tommy described his version of "negative" recruiting when he coached this way.

"You might bring statistics up on academic rankings (of another school), or you have a business school and they don't," he said. "But health and age was kind of an off-limits subject for me. Not by others."

Funny how everybody recruits negatively except those complaining. Is there one bagman out there dishing dirt on every team across the country?

Yet there's little doubt cancer would have been used against Bobby Bowden. He knows it because he understands his business.